Quinton Township School students get real-life lesson in nature with turtle-release project

View full sizeStaff photo by Kevin GrossTrevor
Lodge, Katelyn Duell, Janneil Williams, and Coastal Conservation
Research Program Director Dr. Patrick Baker watch as a turtle is
microchipped before being released into the wild. The students from
Quinton Township School visited the Wetlands Institute in Stone Harbor
on Monday for a field trip with their science class.

QUINTON TWP.
— Ever since taking a graduate course in Coastal Wetlands Ecology at
the Wetlands Institute 12 years ago, Jane Krajewski, a 4th-grade science
teacher at Quinton Township School, has taken her students to release
turtles into the wild.

On Monday, she continued the tradition,
which includes taking in, incubating and then releasing the diamondback
terrapins at the Wetland Institute in Stone Harbor.

“A big part of the program was a conservation project,” she said.

After
asking if she could get involved in raising the hatchlings and
receiving approval, she began raising turtles both at home and in
school. She uses a cross-curricular program that helps teach her
students all about the reptiles from different perspectives, including
math and language arts.

“At the end of the year, the students
compose and perform scripts (for puppet shows) centering around the
problems terrapins experience that cause the population decrease,” she
said, adding she also lectures about the turtles and their local
habitats. “They’re excited to learn about something that’s close by
instead of out of the book.”

When the terrapins are about three
years old and three inches long, they can be microchipped and released.
Once they are about six years old, they come back up to lay eggs, and
then scientists may scan the microchips and also collect eggs for the
next round of hatchlings.

Nine of Krajewski’s 20 turtles were the
right size to be released on Monday. She has about 30 students, who
partnered up and released one turtle per group.

“Once you let them go, just let them go, even if sometimes they make U-turns,” she said.

However,
if they do make a U-turn, they are likely to wander into traffic.
Krajewski said that turtles’ lives are threatened daily as they attempt
to cross the road, looking for a place to nest.

Krajewski said
only the females get hit, because they are looking for a suitable
nesting site. The eggs are often able to be saved, though, and are
immediately incubated.

View full sizeStaff photo by Kevin GrossA
diamondback terrapin is released into the wild by a student from
Quinton Township School during their trip to The Wetlands Institute in
Stone Harbor on Monday.

Constantly
feeding the terrapins and keeping them at a warm temperature boosts
their size, but the heat is also used for another reason. A turtle’s
gender is determined by temperature, and scientists typically hope for a
female turtle so it can provide more eggs.

Dr. Roger Wood, the
program director and research scientist for the Coastal Conservation
Research Program (CCRP), inspired Krajewski’s efforts with the reptiles.
He releases turtles regularly and will talk with the students before
having them try it for themselves.

Wood began patrolling the
roads in the area years ago with a student, looking for terrapin that
were run over. They discovered that they could rescue and incubate the
eggs from the roadkill mothers.

CCRP Director Dr. Patrick Baker
explained to Quinton students the importance of the process. Baker said
that 480 roadkill turtles were picked up last year, as opposed to 167
terrapins this year.

Before the students went out to the
institute’s dock to release the turtles, the research interns divided
them into groups and displayed terrapins of varying sizes, including a
turtle named Einstein, which had two heads and was the size of a
quarter.

“That was creepy,” said student Janneil Williams,
explaining what he and his classmates learned in Krajewski’s science
class, including how to handle the terrapins.

“You put your four fingers on the bottom and your thumb on top,” he said, demonstrating the “terrapin handshake.”

Gage
Ausland, another student, said he would like to come back to the
institute to be a research intern. “I released it on the land so it
could walk into the water,” he said, pointing to where he set his
turtle, Angie, free.

Tommy Hunter made sure not to touch his
terrapin, Mad Money, and let it find its way even as she started going
the wrong way. “I let it go and said, ‘bye,’” Hunter said.

Krajewski
recently won the Salem County Bridge Environmental Challenge Award for
$1,000 to enhance the project. She plans to use some of the money for
larger turtle tanks for the classroom. This summer she will also
participate in a the Diamondback Terrapin Research and Conservation
Project with three other teachers through the Wetlands Institute and the
Disney Worldwide Conservation Fund. This is a 10-week program where the
teachers will work with scientists and undergraduate researchers.

“We
will be developing curricular materials that will be able to be used at
different grade levels that can be adapted by teachers throughout the
state,” she said.